Fortune 500 measures return on leadership
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Good morning. Many people use the Fortune 500, our annual list of America’s largest companies that was published this week, as a starting point for measuring other forms of excellence. For me, one of the most interesting distillations comes from Indiggo, which Fortune partners with to publish the ROL100, a ranking that measures “return on leadership” among the top 100 companies of the Fortune 500. To do that, they use publicly available data points to measure corporate leadership as it connects to purpose, strategic clarity, leadership alignment, and focused action.
This year, Microsoft retook the top spot from Nvidia (No. 2), followed by Delta Air Lines (No. 3), Alphabet (No. 4), and Eli Lilly (No. 5). The median EBITDA per employee of companies in the top quartile was $180,000 vs. $44,000 in the bottom quartile, while median three-year revenue growth was 8.3% and 5.1% respectively. With returns of 109% over the past 5 years, the ROL100 has outperformed both the S&P 500 (+91%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+64%). As Indiggo CEO Janeen Gelbart says, “this reinforces what we all know: how critical the leadership factor is to stock market performance.” You can find a deeper analysis of the index here.
One trait that unites great leaders, in my experience, is a curiosity and desire to learn. Fostering those conversations has always been part of our mission at Fortune, where we regularly bring together leaders to share insights from the front lines. Next week is a great example as Fortune, in partnership with Workday, is bringing together leaders from PayPal, Salesforce, and Team Car Care to talk about agentic AI and the future of finance with emerging CFOs and senior finance leaders. If you’re interested in joining us on June 12 from 11 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (ET), register here.
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Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com